Muslims Seek Prayer Room at Airport

Same Circus, Different Clowns


By PATRICK CONDON Associated Press Writer
MINNEAPOLIS

Airport officials said Friday they will consider setting aside a private area for prayer and meditation at the request of imams concerned about the removal of six Muslim clerics from a US Airways flight last week.

You gotta give it to these clowns. They know how to play us.

A group of Somali clerics met with airport officials Friday and said they would attract less attention if they had a private area for prayer. Devout Muslims pray five times daily, facing the holy city of Mecca.

"When we pray, we don't want a problem. We don't want what happened last week," said Abdulrehman Hersi, an imam at Darul Quba mosque in Minneapolis, referring to six clerics who were barred from a US Airways flight in Minneapolis after drawing the concern of some passengers.

The clerics requested a meeting after both the US Airways incident and a recent flap over Muslim cabdrivers who didn't want to pick up passengers carrying alcohol.

"We are users of the airport, too, and we don't want to get into a situation where Muslims feel we are being marginalized at the airport," said Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul and the meeting's organizer.

Airport officials will accept the group's invitation to visit a mosque, airport spokesman Pat Hogan said.

"I think there's a mutual recognition that it would be helpful for there to be a solid understanding," Hogan said.

Why do we have to give them a special prayer room? We already have meditation rooms in most airports. Stop giving in to these demands for special treatment. Can't we see that there is no end to this? They are training us to submit - submit to their needs, submit to their ideas, submit to their demands. And, there it is: submit to the will of Allah.

What will it take to stand up to this tyranny?